Group of colleagues working together and smiling

From strategy to execution - a talk with L&D leaders

A summary of insights from a recent live panel at Learning Tech. The discussion explores the pathway and challenges in transitioning learning content from a strategic goal to successful execution.

Elise Willson, Content Writer

2022-06-07

To further cement Go1’s presence at London’s 2022 Learning Technologies event, Ollie Browning VP of Sales EMEA Go1 invited Lori Niles-Hofmann, Senior EdTech Transformation Strategist at Niles Nolen, Malcolm Taylor, Senior People Development Manager at Met Office and Afonso Bustos Sanchez, Head of Digital Academy Europe at Ricoh España to discuss learning content strategies and how to execute them successfully.

Fosway survey 2022 findings

Ollie makes a poignant and passionate introduction, opening up the debate with snippets of initial findings from Go1’s latest survey conducted in partnership with Fosway which aims to look at where, how and why people use digital learning content. Ollie demonstrates that based on survey findings, organisations rank ‘developing a learning culture’ as the first reason why businesses now invest in digital learning. Alfonso is a firm advocate of digital learning - he states that in order to create a learning culture, we need to build and push conversations from the cafeteria, to the CEOs office and of course, online. He affirms that the future of work is learning, that learning is digital and finally, that skills are the new currency.

Learning trends

Malcolm speaks of the trends that have stemmed from the pandemic and how the industry of L&D has had to adapt 3x times faster than planned. To him, bite size learning and learning in the flow has been hugely beneficial to teams and partners such as Go1 have been tremendous facilitators. Malcolm also mentions that his own business has changed mindsets - it is no longer one that focuses on ‘push’ learning culture but champions a ‘pull’ learning culture where people want to learn rather than feel like they are being forced to learn.

Building a learning ecosystem

Alfonso is in agreement and further builds that it is important to make sure employees find their learning content easily, so that they can be learning as much and as regularly as possible, with minimal effort. Using good AI is very important to offer them a great ecosystem so they can manage with autonomy their own learning opportunities. During the session Malcolm says that there is real power with creating a story around company objectives and its ethos, so that everything ladders up to business strategies, but also what the employees personal future might look like.

The group go on to discuss what drives the most adoption, including peer to peer recommendation which they believe is the best way to get the validation that content is effective. Alfonso speaks of the challenge to get teams to enjoy their learning experiences - he states that using personalisation, championing autonomy and offering a diverse amount of content will really drive interest for the long term. The group are all in agreement that technology alone will not solve any problems, a humanising approach is also needed.

Predictions for the future of learning

Ollie asks the group where they think investment in digital learning will lie in the years ahead. Lori thinks that user generated content will see a big boom as social media channels feature a wealth of user generated learning materials - she does warn some of the downfalls of this type of media stating that it may not be the preferred route for some of the more discreet, yet highly qualified employees to share their knowledge as they might want to avoid getting attention on them directly. However, user generated content creates conversation and debate and keeps engagement levels high.

The importance of SME and variety in a learning provider

The conversation ends on a final topic - what might might be the reasons for selecting the right digital learning content provider? The top answer from the Fosway survey was ‘subject matter expert engagement’ which Malcolm supports. He speaks about what drew him and his team to Go1, notably the variety of content and how the platform offers a versatile look and feel to cater to different audiences - some pieces of content are more playful, while others would be more serious, much like the variety of audiences within a business.

Throughout Learning Technologies 2022, we ran six panel sessions over two days with an amazing lineup of specialist guest speakers of L&D analysts, researchers, and practitioners. Keen to catch up on all the fun? We've put together a wrap up of the event, including session recordings.